


Traveling Stationary

by wrensandroses



Category: Original Work
Genre: Curses, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Falling In Love, Fantasy, Fluff, Happy Ending, Italy, Light Angst, Magic, Magical Realism, Original Fiction, Restaurants, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28397268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrensandroses/pseuds/wrensandroses
Summary: When Clark decided to travel to a small town in the Italian region of Umbria for a much-needed break from the city and to do some research for his next novel, the last thing he expected to encounter was a restaurant that seemed to bemoving.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character





	Traveling Stationary

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this short story for a school assignment last year, and I decided I might as well upload it here as an original work since I can't see it being published anywhere professionally but I am proud of it and do think it deserves to be read by a few more people than just my family and my teacher. Thank you to anyone who stumbled upon this story of mine and has decided to read it! I hope you enjoy!

Clark drove through a vineyard.

The car bounced erratically on the gravel road, and he gripped the leather steering wheel of the rental car tighter, shifting gears to accommodate the steep decline.

Despite the utter terror of driving on a gravel one-way road down such a hill and the confusion of  _ why GoogleMaps had sent him down this road, _ he felt a rush of giddy exhilaration flood his body. 

He struggled to carefully maneuver the car past rows of grape vines, tangled shades of emerald and chartreuse strings with half-ripe grapes hanging from them like Christmas ornaments. 

_ Am I trespassing?  _ he wondered briefly as he passed a beautiful rustic house that he assumed belonged to the owner of the vineyard. He could already picture it: the owner running out of the house and yelling at him in rapid-fire Italian something along the lines of, “Get off my property, stupid American!” 

Eventually, with a deep sigh of relief, Clark turned out of the vineyard, and onto something he was comfortable with: a typical, two-way pavement road again. There was pavement in America. He  _ understood _ pavement.

But, the vineyard lingered in the back of Clark’s mind. That layer of excitement underneath the terror. The part of him that ignored the money that would be drained from his bank account if he caused any damage to the rental car. The part of him that screamed, “Faster!” as he’d made his descent. The part of him that focused on the vines twisting up around him into the endless cerulean sky. The part of him that grieved when he reached the end of the gravel road. The part of him that longed for something risky and new and terrifying and  _ different _ .

The part of him that had made him decide to come to Italy in the first place.

* * *

Clark drove up yet another hill, slowing down at the top to admire the town he’d left moments ago.

_ I was just over there. It seems so far away. It looks like a fairytale city from this point. Like something out of a painting. _

The faded orange and brown boxy buildings with terracotta roofs rose up along the hillside, collecting at the top into a small town. A church crowned the hill, the cross on its spire surrounded by clear blue sky.

Clark rolled down his window and snapped a picture of the view with his phone before continuing on to his destination.

It didn’t take very long before he’d reached the bottom of the last hill, and began driving up the next one. He passed more green trees, more breathtaking views, more sky.

And then he saw it. His home for the next three months.

A sapphire blue lake sat in the valley to his left. The whole scene reminded him of a bowl of water, with the rim being the rolling green hills surrounding the lake. 

Clark began to drive into the town.

His first thought was that the buildings looked old. Logically, Clark  _ knew _ they were more than just old. This had been a medieval castle town. The remaining buildings were medieval as well. People had lived here for centuries.  _ Of course _ everything looked old.

The buildings were constructed of stones piled on top of each other seemingly without any sort of organization. He briefly wondered how they’d managed to stay upright for so long. There were more terracotta roofs, and the road was no longer asphalt, but cobblestone. 

It took no time at all before he spotted the castle. It was smaller than he expected, but still impressive as the medieval structure stood strong, flags waving at the tops of the four towers.

He pulled into a small lot beside the castle. He wasn’t sure if he was actually allowed to park there, or if he’d wind up with a group of angry Italians yelling at him, but he took the risk.

The owner of the AirBNB he would be staying at, Julius, had said he’d meet him outside the castle, in the courtyard with the roses, on a red bike.

Castle? Check. Courtyard with roses?

Clark looked around the courtyard next to the castle. Two rose bushes were planted there.

Check. Red bike?

Clark looked around some more, but there was no red bike anywhere.

So, while he waited, he approached the metal fence at the edge of the courtyard.

The fence lined the top of a wall which held the earth back from spilling over onto a winding road leading into the center of the town about thirty feet below.

Not wanting to step on the grass, he gripped the railing of the fence and stood on top of the stone wall. He side-stepped until he reached the middle of the garden. 

He leaned his forearms on the warm metal railing and allowed the metal fence to bear some of his weight while he gazed out at the view of rooftops in front of him.

He was tired and hungry and jetlagged. The last time he’d eaten was breakfast in the airport in Rome. It was nearly noon and he had been traveling since five in the afternoon the day prior.

The view was certainly beautiful. It seemed almost surreal, like his exhausted mind was playing tricks on him. Maybe tomorrow he’d wake up and would find himself still in his flat in New York City, overlooking a busy street, not a quiet rural town in Umbria.

“Are you Clark Rowland?” an accented voice asked.

Clark turned his head, to find a man with a little red bike standing in the courtyard.

“Yes, that’s me.” Clark awkwardly shuffled back to the edge of the garden and onto the cobblestones. 

“I’m Julius! I will take you!” Julius gestured down the road past the castle.

Julius was quite a bit shorter than Clark, and he had a long white beard. However, his face was almost completely devoid of wrinkles. He looked sixty, at the oldest.

“Great!” Clark replied. He approached his car, taking his two suitcases and backpack out of the backseat.

“Oh, this is your car?” Julius asked.

“Yeah. Do I need to move it?” Clark watched Julius’ brow furrow, and how he crossed his arms as he thought.

“Yes. But not now. Later. There is free parking lot that way, down that road. Surrounded by olive trees.” Julius pointed toward a road that wound up to the very top of the hill. “Now, I will take you.”

Julius picked up one of the suitcases, and Clark grabbed the other and his backpack.

Because of the obnoxious clanking sound with every inch the suitcase rolled along the cobblestone road, Clark picked it up and carried it, trying to ignore the strain in his tired arms.

They turned down one cobblestone street, too narrow for a car to drive through, and then down another, even narrower one. A steep set of stairs rose up to the door to the apartment.

“Here we are!” Julius exclaimed, leading Clark up the stairs.

He showed him how to unlock the door to the apartment building, and then how to unlock the interior door to his own apartment.

Julius showed him around the place. It wasn’t small by any means. There was a large living room with a kitchen tucked into the corner, a bedroom with a queen sized bed, and a bathroom.

It was actually larger than his place in New York.

Julius showed him the location of all the necessary appliances: the oven, the trash can, the different cooking supplies, etc. He gave Clark directions to the nearest supermarket, and a short list of restaurant recommendations.

Once Julius had left, Clark collapsed onto the couch. He stared out the window for a bit, admiring the amazing view this apartment supplied him with.

The sky was clear and blue with barely a cloud in sight. The lake glittered and small waves could be seen rippling across the otherwise smooth surface, like wrinkles in blue silk. The opposite side of the lake could barely be seen, the little towns on the other side reduced to reddish-brown blotches surrounded by green.

Clark wondered if the other towns were old and made of stone like this one.

If he looked down a few inches from the lake view, he could see the town itself. It was disorganized, the buildings scattered around with some spread out and others so close together Clark felt slightly claustrophobic just thinking about living there.

If he looked past the clusters of buildings, there were a few aspects of the view that seemed a little out of place with the rest of the scenery.

First, there was a large parking lot slightly to the left. It was mostly empty, except for a few small cars. Between the rows of parking places there were lamp posts that looked like they had come straight out of an old black and white film.

Secondly, a little bit to the right of the parking lot were two rows of sycamore trees leading to the lake, splitting the town straight down the middle.

The castle couldn’t be seen from his apartment.

The room felt a little stuffy, so Clark opened a few other windows. Deciding to go grocery shopping later, he kicked off his shoes and flopped onto the bed still fully clothed. He let himself be pulled down into sleep.

* * *

He awoke to his phone ringing where he’d left it on the bedside table. He had answered the phone call before he was even fully awake.

“Hello?” he said groggily.

“Hi, darling! I just wanted to make sure you got to the apartment safe!” Clark’s mother’s voice sounded tinny through the phone speakers.

“Yeah, sorry. I forgot to text you, didn’t I?”

“Yes. But it’s fine! Were you asleep?”

Clark sighed. “Yeah, I took a nap.”

“Clark! What did I tell you about taking naps when you’re jetlagged?” She sighed. “Please tell me you set an alarm for yourself so you wouldn’t sleep too long.”

“Yeah, I did,” Clark lied. 

“I know it’s exhausting to travel, and you’re by yourself, but you’ll just mess up your sleep schedule. Oh, I remember from my trip to Umbria back in the day how windy the roads are-“

“Yeah, it’s very windy here.” Clark sat up and slid his shoes back on. He walked over to the vanity in the corner to quickly fix his hair and make it look like he  _ hadn’t _ just been sleeping. “Look, I’ve got to go grocery shopping. I’ll text you later, Mom.”

They said their goodbyes right as Clark stepped out the door. He typed the address Julius left for him into his phone and let GoogleMaps guide him through the town.

“Hopefully it won’t lead me through any more vineyards,” Clark muttered to himself.

He walked down the hill on the uneven cobblestone streets.

_ The weirdest thing about this town, _ Clark thought,  _ is that it seems like no one lives here. _

There were no people out on the streets. The only actual proof that the houses were inhabited were the clotheslines outside the windows with shirts and pants and underwear hanging on them. Otherwise, it seemed completely deserted.

When Clark reached the base of the hill, the small streets opened up to a road that led to an intersection. 

From that point on, the streets were wider and the buildings more modern. There was even a hotel that looked like it was built in the ‘70s called “The Modern Inn.”

Clark reached the intersection. Leading to the lake was the row of sycamore trees. Clark realized now that the tops of the trees had been obscuring a two-way street between the rows that led to the lakeside.

He turned right, making a mental note to check out the sycamores later, and continued on his way to the grocery store. 

The buildings in this area of town looked trashy, to say the least. Clearly the photos online were taken from an angle where these buildings were out of the frame. They looked like they could be in pretty much any small city in America. The storefronts were run down and dirty, at least one letter in every neon sign was burned out.

Right behind the modern, American-looking buildings were the medieval ones. Most of the signs were written in Italian and the streets were lined with the vintage street lamps. There were no people around. It was disorienting. 

The grocery store looked just like the rest of the modern buildings: dirty, beige, and low to the ground.

The lights inside were all off and the door was locked.

Clark swore under his breath and his stomach growled as if mocking him.

He continued to wander down the streets, this time looking for a restaurant.  _ What kind of grocery store isn’t open at 4pm on a Monday? _

However, each restaurant he passed was closed, just like the grocery store. Clark wandered down the streets, once again reaching the intersection. His stomach hurt so much it was almost painful, but he began walking down the sycamore lined street anyway. After all, he might as well explore a little. He would be just as hungry back at the apartment as he would out on the streets.

The sycamores created a yellow canopy above him, and fallen leaves littered the sidewalk. 

The houses along this road looked even more deserted than the medieval one. The outer walls were stained and yellowed and the yards completely overgrown with vines. They reminded Clark of Floridian beach houses.

_ I guess it  _ is  _ a beach town, _ Clark thought,  _ I remember reading that Italians like to vacation here in the summers. _

However, it wasn’t summer, but late September, so maybe that explained the lack of people.

Clark reached a cul de sac at the end of the road with a fountain in the middle of it. He approached the fountain, and peered into the murky water and was surprised to find orange and black koi fish swimming around.

Clark was beginning to feel a little lightheaded.

He walked through a small park to the lakeside to look for a place to sit down and saw people for the first time since Julius that morning.

Two elderly women were sipping white wine at a small beachside cafe. Clark grinned, excitement building at having found an open restaurant. He approached the restaurant door, but saw the single employee taking her apron off. She was preparing to close the restaurant for the day, just like the rest.

Clark let out a sigh of defeat, took a seat on a nearby bench, and looked out on the water.

This lake made the one he’d grown up near looked like just a puddle. Waves rippled through the water and licked up the shore, and Clark once again wondered if the towns on the other side of the lake looked like this hodgepodge medieval, vintage, run-down, Floridian, Italian beach town.

A cold gust of wind ripped through his sweater and he shivered. 

His stomach growled.

Clark stood up from the bench and began the walk back to the apartment, back past the sycamores, down to the intersection, and back to the medieval portion of the town, castle looming in the distance.

Right as he was about to go up a long set of stairs to his street, he heard his phone ring.

“Hi, Aaron.” Clark paused, his trek through the town and leaned against a building nearby.

“Hey, dude! How’s Umbria?” 

“It’s nice. It would be nicer if all the restaurants weren’t closed.”

“That sucks, man. Just wanted to make sure you made it to the town okay. Your mom called me earlier. She was worried.”

Clark rolled his eyes. “Yeah, she called me an hour ago.”

“Oh, okay. Good to know you’re alive. I have to get back to work. Just wanted to check on you! Have fun in Italy.”

Clark muttered his thanks and hung up the phone.

“Hey, excuse me?”

He whirled around. Here it was, the moment Clark had been waiting for: an angry Italian would yell at him for some unspoken cultural rule he’d broken, except this one could apparently speak English so he’d be able to hear and understand every insult hurled his way. He really should have done more research before he traveled… 

“I couldn’t help but overhear you. Are you a tourist? Everything is closed on Mondays until seven.”

“Oh,” Clark said. A woman had spoken to him. She had olive skin, as did most of the Italians Clark had seen, and long black hair pulled back into a braid. Despite the obvious effort put into her hair, defiant, curly flyaways framed her square face. 

She was sitting at a table outside of one of the many closed restaurants. Clark wondered how he hadn’t noticed her before

“Do you want something to eat?” The woman asked with only a slight accent. “I own this restaurant.”

“I don’t want to bother you,” Clark quickly replied, although, truthfully, the offer was very tempting. However, his stomach growled embarrassingly loudly, betraying his attempt at politeness.

The woman giggled. “It’s no trouble.” She opened the door for him, and he followed her into the restaurant.

“I can’t thank you enough. The last time I ate anything was this morning at the airport in Rome. I wasn’t expecting everything to be closed,” Clark said. He stood awkwardly as the woman walked toward the back of the room.

The walls of the restaurant were made of the same disorganized stones as all of the medieval buildings, except certain sections of them had been covered with plaster and painted a deep orange color, creating rounded swirls on the walls.

“You don’t have to just stand there. You can come in the kitchen with me,” the woman said, smiling at him over her shoulder. “I don’t bite.”

Clark chuckled nervously. However, he followed her into the kitchen.

Clark had never worked in the service industry, instead spending his summers as a teenager in various internships, so he had no idea what a kitchen in a restaurant looked like. However, this one wasn’t what he expected at all.

It reminded him of the kitchen from his childhood home in Ohio, except with more counter space and a bigger oven, stovetop, refrigerator, and dishwasher. Otherwise, everything down to the colorful tiles looked like an ordinary kitchen in a house.

Clark wondered where they kept all the food, because the cabinets surely weren’t big enough for all the ingredients needed to run a restaurant.

“You can get a chair and sit. Do you want a menu?” The woman asked, approaching a door on the other end of the room.

“Oh, no, I’m not picky. Make whatever is easiest. I can’t thank you enough for this. You’re very kind.”

“It’s not a problem. I didn’t have anything to do, and I like cooking,” she said. She opened the door, and disappeared into the room for a minute. She came back carrying an armful of assorted jars.

“You speak English very well,” Clark commented.

“Thank you. I taught myself.” She washed her hands and quickly wiped down the counter.

“Really? You must be very smart, teaching yourself. I don’t think I could teach myself Italian.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. It took a lot of time and practice.” 

“Have you ever been to America? Or England?”

The woman shook her head. “I had a lot of free time when I was little. There’s not much to do in this town, so I watched a lot of American television and movies, and it was hard to find Italian subtitles for some things, so it was just easier to learn the language.”

“You’re telling me you taught yourself English to be able to watch television easier?” Clark said incredulously.

She giggled, “When you say it like that, I sound crazy.”

“No, not crazy! It’s impressive.”

“Thank you. We don’t get many tourists other than Italians from big cities like Rome or Florence, but knowing English is very helpful when we get the occasional Englishman or American.” 

She picked up a little plastic wrapped mound of pasta dough from the other end of the counter. “We make all of our pasta dough in advance. It takes too long otherwise,” she explained.

“What happens if you run out?” Clark asked. 

She began to roll out a little square of the dough. “I don’t think we ever have.”

They sat in silence while she rolled out more and more of the dough, turning it from a thick clump to a thin, nearly translucent sheet that she then cut into slim noodles.

“Doesn’t it take forever to make enough pasta to feed all of your customers?”

“It would if I did it this way. We use a machine to make the noodles we serve. This is the way I make pasta when I’m just making it for my family.”

Clark nodded, warmth blossoming in his chest. 

“I can’t believe how rude I’ve been. My mother would be disappointed in me. I’m going to be eating your food, and I don’t even know your name.”

“My name is Alessandra. What is yours?”

“Clark.”

“Why are you in Umbria this late in the year?” Alessandra opened a cupboard and pulled out a pot that she began to fill with water from the sink.

“I’m a writer, and I’m doing research for a book.”

She put the pot on the stove. “What is the book about?” 

“You’ll have to read it when it’s finished to find out.”

“I definitely will.”

They were comfortably silent after that, only listening to the water in the pot that had recently come to a rolling boil. Alessandra began adding the pasta in.

Clark leaned his head on his fist, and closed his eyes.

“Clark?”

Clark jolted awake to find Alessandra sitting across from him, a small smile on her face. 

She had really dark eyes, he noticed. The brown of her iris was almost as dark as her pupil. 

“Ah, sorry. I fell asleep, I guess.”

“That’s a funny way to sleep.” Alessandra gestured at where his right arm was propping his head upright.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess it is.”

Alessandra pushed a bowl of pasta toward him. It was simple: pasta noodles, red sauce, cheese of some sort. 

Clark picked up the fork in the bowl and began eating the pasta. Alessandra started cleaning the kitchen counter. “You said your name is ‘Clark’, right?”

Clark nodded.

“Would you write down your full name for me? I wanted to look up your books.”

“Of course!” 

Alessandra handed him a piece of paper and a pen, and Clark scribbled his name down.

“Thank you!” She grinned.

Clark finished the pasta soon after, and asked how much he owed her.

She replied, “Eight euro.”

He gave her the colorful bills, thanked her once again, and left the restaurant.

Clark stepped back out into the streets to discover it was already dusk. The town looked very different at this time of day. It seemed almost like he was in a totally different area. He used the castle in the distance to guide him back to his apartment. Once again he noticed the almost total absence of people. 

The clicking of his shoes on the stones echoed.

Clark fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow that night.

* * *

The next day he made his way back to the restaurant only to find a ramshackle building without a roof and a lefthand wall.

_ Maybe I’m on the wrong street?  _ he wondered.

He walked to the next street. And the next. He walked until he found himself at a dead end. A fence, someone’s yard, and more stone buildings were the only thing in sight. He had passed a few restaurants, but none of them were the one.

He frowned, and made his way back to the main road. The grocery store was open. He went in there and bought food to prevent any repeats of Monday.

Three days later and he still hadn’t seen the restaurant or Alessandra at all. It was almost like he had imagined the whole thing. Maybe he had. He’d been exhausted and jetlagged and hungry. Maybe he had dreamt of Alessandra and her dark eyes and delicious pasta.

He slept in later than usual the next morning. He’d stayed up late writing after a sudden burst of inspiration.

When he went into town around three in the afternoon, all the stores and restaurants were closed. 

Clark swore and kicked at the cobblestones, and then swore again at the throbbing pain in his big toe.

He thought back to the now-bare pantry in the apartment. He would have to wait a few hours and hope somewhere was open, because the only food he had was some jam.  _ I guess that’s what happens when you become a hermit for a few days, _ he thought.

He decided to walk along the water until then. He pulled out the little journal he carried with him and began taking notes about the setting to hopefully use in his novel.

The air was crisp, and the wind was sharp, tearing through his clothes like knives and running its icy fingers through his hair.

The water churned that day. The lake had been rather placid, or at least had appeared so from his window, on the days prior, but now it was violent and waves crashed on the sand, scratching at the beach like they were trying to pull it in with them.

An overcast sky hid the sun. Everything was dimmer, the lighting tinted grey. The yellow sycamore leaves stood out against the browns and greys of the buildings.

Clark felt a light sprinkle of water on his cheek. He briefly wondered whether it was rain or spray from the sea. 

He quickly learned it was the former when fat raindrops landed on his head.

Clark stuffed his journal in his coat pocket and ran toward the nearest building: a small restaurant near the water.

The building was shack-like, the faded green paint peeling. It had a large outdoor seating area that was being assaulted by the rain, and lots of windows showing the inside of the building. It appeared empty. The metals chairs were upside down on the tables.

Clark sought refuge under the canopy above the front door and watched the rivulets of water running down the sidewalk. The rain was too heavy for him to walk uphill to his apartment unless he wanted to get soaked. He decided to wait it out. 

Clark’s stomach growled.

He was just pulling his notebook out to make more notes when the door opened behind him.

He jumped in surprise.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” A familiar voice said.

Clark turned and found Alessandra peering out of the door. 

“Do you want to come in?” She asked.

Clark considered her offer for a moment. If he were thinking rationally, he probably wouldn’t have followed her into the restaurant, or, at least, he’d have asked why she was in a deserted building. However, it was cold, and he was soaked to the bone. Not to mention, hungry. He wasn’t thinking rationally.

He followed her in.

Instead of an empty room with metal chairs on top of metal tables with wide windows everywhere, he looked at a room lit with orange light and stone walls with orange patches of plaster creating swirls.

“What the…”

“Do you want something to eat?” Alessandra asked.

“I-I-I don’t understand?” Clark stuttered. “Am I going crazy?” He backed up and felt for the doorknob. He ripped the door open and dashed back outside.

He looked through the windows from outside, then looked back at the open doorway.

The windows showed the lonely, cold, empty room with metal tables. The doorway showed the warm, orange room with Alessandra staring back at him.

“You are not crazy,” Alessandra said, walking out of the restaurant, but stopping under the canopy.

“Yes, I am! I have to be hallucinating or something!”

Alessandra’s eyebrows furrowed. “Hallu… hallucin… hallucin-what?” 

“Hallucinating. It’s not important. I have to go.” Clark turned away and began walking back toward the main sidewalk.

“No!” Alessandra ran out into the rain and grabbed his arm. “It’s raining,” she said. The rain had already soaked her braided hair, and the flyaways were sticking to her forehead. She was still as pretty as ever. 

“Come inside. You’re hungry, and you’ll get sick in this weather.”

Clark scoffed. “How do you know I’m hungry?”

Alessandra smiled softly. “I’ll explain. Just come with me.  _ Please _ .”

Clark frowned, but let her lead him back into the restaurant.

Once inside, she closed the door, and squeezed the water out of her braid.

Clark sat down at a nearby table.

Alessandra was wearing a colorful floral dress, with long, quarter-length sleeves. It was tight on top, hugging her waist, and it flared out at the skirt. Clark tried not to stare.

Alessandra sat down across from him, “So, the restaurant moves.”

Clark let out a gruff laugh. “That much is obvious.”

“It is part of a curse,” she continued.

“A curse? You’re kidding me, right?” 

“No, I’m serious. About a hundred years ago, the restaurant was closed for the afternoon, but a hungry traveler stopped to beg for food. My family refused. The traveler cursed us. Now, the restaurant moves to wherever the hungriest person in the town is, and all the… what’s the word?”

“Huh?”

“It’s something… It means the kids of someone, but it’s not just… hmm… It means future family, or something like that. I think it’s the title of a Disney movie…?”

“Descendants?”

“Yes! Descendents. All the descendents are stuck in this town, too. The curse will only be broken once we ‘satisfy’ one of the traveler’s descendents.”

“So, you serve anyone no matter whether the restaurant is open or not in case they are one of the descendents of this traveler,” he said. 

_ It’s not just me,  _ he thought, feeling a stab in his gut of something akin to disappointment.

Alessandra nodded. The imaginary knife twisted.

“I probably shouldn’t have told you about this, but you are staying here for a while, and you already realized that the restaurant isn’t normal. It is  _ supposed _ to be a secret, but everyone in the town knows. It’s hard not to know.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Clark said, trying not to let his completely irrational disappointment seep into his tone.

Alessandra let out a little sigh before asking quietly, “Do you want something to eat?”

Clark looked out the window at the pouring rain. He wouldn’t be going home anytime soon.

“Yeah, that would be great. As long as it’s not too much trouble.”

Alessandra smiled, and how had Clark not noticed how pretty her smile was? 

Alessandra disappeared into the kitchen, and Clark chose to remain at the table, staring out at the rain and contemplating what he’d just been told.

* * *

When the rain slowed and it came time to pay, Alessandra wouldn’t let him.

“No, really, I insist. Take the money.”

“No,  _ I _ insist. I’m not going to charge a friend.”

A small smile crept up Clark’s face. “Friends?”

“Aren’t we?” Alessandra asked. Her eyes sparkled.

“Yeah, I’d say we are.”

“Then you don’t have to pay me.”

They said their goodbyes, and Clark opened the door to leave. He paused and asked, “Do you want to do something, sometime? Other than make me pasta. We are friends, after all.”

“I would have to get my sister to watch the restaurant for me. One of us always has to be inside the restaurant, and you and I couldn’t leave the town.”

“You have a sister?”

“Yes, her name is Gianna. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind… Yes, I would like to do something with you, sometime. Although, there isn’t much to do here.”

“I’m sure we could find something. What day would be best for you?”

They agreed on the next Friday afternoon. Alessandra shooed Clark out of the restaurant while the rain was still falling slowly. The restaurant had moved at some point while they had been inside, so Clark found himself standing only a few blocks away from his apartment. He made his way home.

He tried to work on the novel, but found himself staring at a blinking cursor.

The rain started to pick up again.

* * *

It was sunny when Clark and Alessandra met that Friday, a nice break from the oppressive layer of clouds that had refused to budge the last week. 

“I told you there isn’t much to do here,” Alessandra said, taking another bite of her strawberry gelato. 

Clark laughed. “You’re right. This town is exceptionally boring.” 

Alessandra giggled.

“Although, it’s very pretty.”

They walked in silence together before settling on a bench that looked out on the castle at the top of the hill. “Is that why you chose to come here?” She asked. “The scenery?”

“In a sense. My grandfather spent a few months in Umbria back when he was young, traveling from town to town, and he always talked about how peaceful it was. My mother traveled to Umbria last year and gave the same report. I wanted somewhere peaceful to work on my novel — New York can be so distracting — and I needed a change, so I thought maybe I could do something different and spend a few months abroad in Umbria. I'm not the most adventurous type, so traveling anywhere was… a big decision for me. Anyway, I did choose this specific town because of the scenery. My novel takes place in a medieval setting, so I thought the architecture here might be inspiring.”

Alessandra nodded. “Has this town accomplished what you wanted it to?”

“It’s peaceful, that’s for sure. Sometimes I doubt anyone actually lives here.”

She sighed, staring down at her gelato. “The town is slowly dying. The only people that actually live here year-round are old. All the young people travel here from neighboring towns during tourist season to work.”

Clark nodded. “Is it more busy in the summers?”

“Yes, although this is becoming a less popular tourist destination every year.”

“Are you worried?”

Alessandra turned to look Clark in the eyes, the flick of her head tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. “About what?”

“With fewer people coming here, don’t you have less of a chance of breaking the curse?”

The corners of Alessandra’s mouth curved downwards. “I try not to think about that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, uhm,” Clark scrambled to change the topic. “It’s very beautiful here. It’s made for a great work environment. I’ve written thirty thousand words of the novel.”

“That’s fantastic! Will you tell me about the novel? Please? I’m so curious about it.”

Clark caved, and gave her a brief summary of the storyline. However, the summary must not have been as brief as he thought, because Alessandra was long finished with her gelato by the time he finished explaining. She seemed interested however, and they wound up walking alongside the lake discussing the story. 

Clark quickly realized that talking with Alessandra came easily, and they lost track of time. Clark only noticed the sun was setting when the lake began to turn a light pink.

That was how Clark spent his autumn in Italy. When he wasn’t working on his novel, he was with Alessandra. When it got too cold for walking, they both found themselves content with staying inside at either the restaurant or Clark’s apartment. Alessandra made it known how much she adored the view of the town from Clark’s apartment. She also made it very clear how much she hated being stuck in the same town she admired the view of.

They were drinking coffee in Clark’s living room, the grandfather clock ticking quietly in the background. Alessandra was sitting at the window and Clark on the couch.

“I finished the novel yesterday.”

Alessandra whipped her head around to look at him. She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Really? Congratulations!”

“Thank you! And just in time, too. I’m leaving in a week.”

The smile fell from Alessandra’s face. “Oh. A week? That’s so soon.”

Clark sighed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Alessandra nodded.

“I’m so happy here. I don’t want to leave.”

Alessandra sighed. “Oh, don’t just say things like that for my sake. How could you be happy here? It’s so boring.”

“That’s not true. The scenery here is interesting enough to make up for the lack of things to do.”

“Seriously, Clark. You don’t have to lie just to make me feel better.”

“But I’m not lying! I really do like it here, and I don’t want to leave. And it’s true I don’t really want to live here for much longer. But I’m so happy here, and I don’t want to leave.”

“You aren’t making sense. You just said you don’t want to live here, but you don’t want to leave?”

Clark took a deep breath. “I really like it here. But… I love something here, and I don’t want to leave it behind. But I have to.”

The air in the room felt heavy. Alessandra walked over to Clark and sat next to him. “What don’t you want to leave?”

Internally, Clark weighed his options. He could tell her how he felt, risk rejection, and then leave her in a week, or he could not tell her how he felt and then leave her in a week.

Neither were great options.

“You. I don’t want to leave you. I’m so happy with you, and I’m going to be devastated when I go home without you. I wish I didn’t have to leave you here. Even if you don’t want to come with me, I just wish you could travel the world like you want to. I can tell you aren’t happy here, and I want so desperately for you to be happy. I think I’ll only really be satisfied if you are happy. Alessandra… I’m in love with you.”

When Alessandra didn’t reply, Clark grew worried he had said something wrong. He should have lied and said something like that he didn’t want to leave the sycamore trees.

“I love you too. And, I want to go with you, too. But we both know I can’t. I have to stay here.”

They sat in silence, the only sounds to be heard being the deafening ticking of the clock and the wind whistling from outside the open window. 

Clark noticed that it had begun to rain. The windowsill was wet, now. He stood and closed the window. The lake was a dull, slate gray. “Has anyone ever tried to leave?” Clark asked softly.

“Yes. It’s like there’s an invisible wall stopping you. I’m not kidding when I say I am incapable of leaving.”

Alessandra left the apartment shortly afterward, but not before kissing Clark chastely at the door and whispering, “I’m really sorry.”

By the end of the week when Clark was due to leave, it became obvious the restaurant had stopped moving.

* * *

Clark still couldn’t believe the curse had somehow been broken, yet it had. Alessandra sitting next to him in the rental car was proof, especially as they drove past the castle and over the town’s borders without anything stopping them.

“I’m so excited, you know. Living in that town has kept me from doing anything exciting. Travel sounds so…” Alessandra paused, seemingly trying to think of a specific world. “Exhilarating! And… and just  _ different.” _

“What if it’s just that nobody’s hungry?” Clark asked suddenly. “What if you get, like, teleported back there the moment someone’s hungry?

Alessandra laughed, the biggest smile on her face Clark had ever seen from her. “That’s not how it works. The restaurant moves — moved — to wherever the hungriest person is — I mean, was. The restaurant used to move to wherever the hungriest person was. So, if nobody was hungry, then it would just move to where the person that was the hungriest out of the not hungry people was. You see? So it was almost always moving. But it hasn’t moved. And look! We just left. So clearly the curse is broken.”

“I wonder how.” 

“I have no idea. I guess Gianna or I somehow ‘satisfied’ a descendent of the original man that cursed us. But, I don’t know who it could have been. You’ve been our only new customer.”

“You know, I’ve mentioned before that my grandfather traveled to Umbria back when he was young.”

Alessandra gasped. “You don’t think…”

“Maybe.” Clark said. “Of course, we’ll never know. He’s dead.”

Clark managed to avoid driving through any vineyards this time around. As they drove over a hill and the bright, clear water of the lake disappeared behind them, it began to rain.

“How fantastic!” Alessandra exclaimed. “It’s raining, yet the sun is still out!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you again for reading Traveling Stationary! You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/wrensandroses) if you're interested in seeing me fangirl (mostly about K-Pop) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/c/wrensandroses) if you're interested in checking out my various fanvids!


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